Droplets in a Sea
by ZiYu
Summary: Half hidden in shadow, half hidden in light; they are ancient enough to reminiscence, young enough to live, and have grown just enough to begin worrying over the Future.


**A/N:** AAPA experiences an update drought, for which I must apologize. Still adjusting to shifts in RL though, so my FF updates will continue to be sporadic. Sorry. This is just a drabble, an introspective piece to help me ease back into writing. In other words, brain fart with no planning or forethought whatsoever (what with all my KHR fics being like this, I'm surprised I've waited until now to dump one into the Disgaea archives). Approach with caution, and a bamboo pole if you happen to have brought one. Don't say I didn't warn you about mind-numbing levels of pointless stupidity!

**Title:** Droplets in a Sea**  
>Rating:<strong> K**  
>Summary:<strong> Half hidden in shadow, half hidden in light; they are ancient enough to reminiscence, young enough to live, and have grown just enough to begin worrying over the Future.**  
>Characters:<strong> Laharl's mother (I can't even recall her name?)/ Big Sis Prinny; King Kritchevskoy/ Vyers; Seraph Lamington

* * *

><p>The children – young upstarts – they are rigid, ramrod straight, ferociously upfront and clawing tenaciously at the obstacles set immediately before them. They are fire, and Life, and a spontaneous energy devoted to every moment of the Present.<p>

But _they_ are different. Half hidden in shadow, half hidden in light; they are ancient enough to reminiscence, young enough to live (for one is never too old for Life), and have grown just enough to begin worrying over the Future.

They are different, yet they were the same, once. Life is like that, no matter where – as simple or as complicated as however one wants to make it out to be.

**I.**

If she chose not to come here, perhaps she would've borne to Earth a porcelain faced daughter, eyes wide and innocent and hazel-brown like her own, back when she was naught but a little human child. Perhaps she would still pursue witchcraft, sew the limbs of her miniature voodoo dolls together, and her baby would tug at their mock fingers and felt hair and ask "What is this, momma?"

Perhaps. But that is a 'what if', a spell spun by the imagination, an incantation of folly lost upon the wind. What currently _is_, is her staring into tortured crimson eyes, feeling the burning heat of flushed skin beneath the palm of her hand and the anxious _badump badump badump_ of her own too human heart.

He'll hate her for doing this, she knows. His father – her lover will be (is already) grieving. She, too, feels the cold coils of regret, the numbing pain of what was lost before ever being gained, the cruel grip of worry over a future in which she can assert no control.

Yet she is just as young as she is wise now, and in this moment she is absolutely certain of her choice. In the future, because of her decision today, he may come to resent what he was initially already ambivalent towards, come to hate the love that made him feel loss before he ever felt fulfillment.

Perhaps with a full human child, Love would come more naturally. But she won't let that fear stop her from doing what she feels is necessary now; just as she never dared to think, thirty years ago, that she would come to live in the Netherworld or that a Netherworld even truly existed, she has no way of knowing for sure what path of growth her child will take from tomorrow on.

She is a Witch just as she is a Mother, and if she has learned nothing else she knows that the Universe can work in miraculous ways. She resolves to trust her intuition.

"Goodnight, Laharl. Sweet dreams, and wake up strong and healthy, alright?"

**II.**

He has always been the kind of man to throw everything within himself into whatever he devotes himself to (with a fair amount of success), and that includes many things: Overlord, Lover, Father.

Except sometimes, he wonders about that third role. When he asks his child if he loves him, and Laharl replies back with an "I hate you," he at first manages to persuade himself to be content and placated with that answer. That those words are the hallmark of a young demon, and is a sentence he will eventually outgrow as he gradually inches taller, learns to wield his sword more deftly, collects and stows away drops of experience.

When Laharl grows into a young toddling demon, roughly akin to a four year old human, he helps a castle servant –a little tearful girl the same age as his own boy – bury her killed pet in the Castle Gardens. It's the first instance in a seemingly never-ending expanse of time, that he sees a demon so startlingly expressive with her emotions, revealing a transparent and tragic grief deeply interwoven with feelings of love and companionship.

It makes him recall his own love for a woman, the child borne of that love, and makes him think of young demons and the necessity of humans to be there to show them what love and affection means. Then, he wonders.

Before turning his mind back to political affairs.

As the years pass, Laharl remains as brash as he is callous, as stubborn as he is persistent, and he privately begins to muse over the possibility that his son will forever be emotionally stilted. Then, because foresight is not something he has completely in his grasp and hindsight would probably bear more fruit, he wonders if this development is due to their father-son communications – or lack thereof.

It's his second wisp of helplessness, the first lining of doubt, another inkling of failure, and is one more secret he locks close to his heart, right beside the third and last: his silent choice to face Baal in a battle he knows will be final – for one or the other, if not both.

His second-to-last question is how Laharl will react; and because he will not be able to do anything anymore, his final question lies with how his own son will proceed in the future.

Then, the ending of all thoughts zips past as his mind veers off the brink into darkness, as tenuous as it is certain; it is an answer, and is inexplicably tied to faith.

**III.**

He never had a child to call his own, nor did he ever accept a disciple to pass forth his greatest teachings, deepest insights, and most confounding questions. Yet even though he has never had a target with which to shower his affections, the spread of such care is something that he finds himself concerned with most often. Above all, he wants to see a Universe – not just a world – of compassion given and taken freely.

But he is one person, and Love is not the sort of realm that one can enter alone. That selfish yearning is perhaps the primary reason why he summons Flonne to the Inner Sanctum so often: to discuss and stew his thoughts, his ideals with an angel trainee as blank and simple as she is aspiring (and may, in the future, be inspiring). Initiating a conversation about perennials and shifting the discourse to society is only too easy, too natural, too commonplace.

Even so, there is a dull ache in his chest, not sharp like any form of suffering but ever-present and unsatisfying. Above all, he seeks a kindred spirit, no matter of what background. Someone with whom he can plan and dream, a partner or co-leader to start this campaign of Love, this mission to revolutionize Worlds.

Because it is not a task to be accomplished by a sole individual. More than his own wishful thinking, or the floaty fantasies of another maybe-companion, it is the desire of every other spirit that populates the worlds – the reputably cruel Demons, the self-interested Humans, and the mechanically emotionless Angels – that is key to the realization of such a vision.

But even if he cannot be the End and Flonne cannot be the Way, he wishes – hopes – thinks, that he could be a Beginning. Or one link on the chain near the start, anyhow.

**III.**

When the disembodied spirit of King Kritchevskoy floats before him, brought forward to the highest cloud of Celestia by the irresistible pull of Judgement, he begins to think that dreams could morph into reality, and it would certainly be worth a try.

He grants the former Overlord a new body, which by all means, is a taboo even older than he the Seraph himself. But he is prepared – obliged, really – to bend a few rules for the sake of this cause. Sacrifices must be made, whether it be made on his part or others. For this is a game but not a game, and it has stakes that are only more real and thus more terrifying.

They speak for hours; the sun rises and sets multiple times; they are washed in rays of bright gold and flaring white and bloody red. The pieces are classified and allocated, the goals and board determined and drawn; the first moves set down by each party.

The collaborating brings a foreign sense of exhilaration. For their plan to work, they must be as good rivals as they are friends, maintain the perfect balance between push and pull, and hope that reflects onto the pupils they choose to be candidates, the ones who will fumble with their burdens and carry on their sentiments.

It is delicate. Many traps and pit-holes lay to ensnare them. Yet as long as failure is not an absolute certainty, he will be sure to read this new board game as diligently as he can.

He eventually returns to his roots, of times when seeds were first sown, and summons Flonne once more.

**II.**

When he meets his son again, there is nothing of the formality between Overlord and Crown Prince to stifle their relationship, nor can he be upfront about the blood bond that binds them closer than anyone else. It is a release as much as it is a restraint, and he decides to have fun with this new dynamic while he can.

He figures he didn't relax enough back then, when he was King and thought there was no heavier duty or mission. Now, though, he knows; he's come to understand and think more than a lifetime's worth of flickering musings in these few days (?) upon his death, and has become more carefree as he's become serious, even though his fresh bout of insight has brought more uncertainties than absolutes.

Laharl matures, sandwiched between the pink-haired demon he had once watched over and the bubbling angel trainee sent by Seraph Lamington. Now, the growth of his son bears a thousand times more weight than that of one old man's concerns, and each halting step to Love made by Laharl he resounds with an act even more ridiculous (jubilant) than the last.

The food in the picnic baskets are delectable, though. No matter how things end, he thinks he'll be able to summon a waterfall of pride for his son. Well, as long as the kid doesn't singe his old man's luminous hair again.

**I.**

She has always preached love and strived to be warm-hearted, but in retrospect she must have been one of the crueler people if she managed to leave her son behind. Twice.

And she doesn't want to sound heartless, because she could never mean it in that way. But the fact is, this time, letting her son watch her go feels astoundingly easier. Easier by a million times, and she is sure this light-as-a-feather feeling is not simply because she is being guided to the Red Moon without prinny suit in tow.

It's not that the regrets and yearnings have evaporated; until the last moment, even now, she wishes she could have waddled up to her beloved son and cradled him in her arms (flippers), obstruct the arrogant young lad's path and softly reprimand (squawk) at him in a way that is half reproachful and half playful.

It's just that those feelings have been cast beneath the tides of relief, siphoned away until what exists is no longer the burden but the shells, the husks, the memories of such feelings. Because she knows this time, as she parts, that this may not be the last time they see each other. That somewhere, somehow, in different circumstances, their paths will twine again – and she can be granted another chance of openly loving her child again.

Her child has grown well among friends, and for that she is infinitely happy. She knows she is puppeteer as much as she is a puppet; that whether nearby or far away, in her first or second life, there were strings she pulled for Laharl and strings somewhere that were pulled for her.

She has fought, Laharl is fighting, so are his friends, so is Kritchevskoy, probably – somewhere—, and many many others, too. Too many to factor, to encompass, to even see – but that is alright, because they all have roles to play, and a different strength can be gained from that awareness.

It's not just motherly pride that says her son will be destined for great things.

**0.**

They are like droplets of water in a vast sea, merging and parting with little rhyme or reason –

Except there is always that push and pull, the calculation of some and the hearts of more, and there is always, always, a reason.

Even if they cannot see the entire picture for themselves, they can sense that Truth in every move they initiate, and every reaction that is brought forth. It will never be enough, yet at the very same time, it always has been and will forever be enough.


End file.
